This mint green starburst needle drag is for last week’s 40 Great Nail Art Ideas theme – I’m caught up finally! Mint green is the colour scheme for the week and my own prompt is needle drag.

I have done a few needle drag manicures now, and I wanted to try a different pattern. This is inspired by a manicure done by the exceptionally talented Sveta Sanders. I don’t know how she manages to fit two starbursts onto a nail – I had trouble making just one small enough per nail. And it was incredibly frustrating for me as I did about ten versions before I was happy with one. I think my problem is that the base polish I used – SpaRitual Delight – dries that bit too quickly for an effective needle drag.

So, as mentioned, the base is SpaRitual Delight. It is the loveliest mint green that I own. Regular readers will know that I really don’t like green at all – but I do like a good mint green.

I teamed it up with just one extra colour, Barry M Watermelon. I painted a thick second coat of the mint green, then dotted on: dark green, mint green, dark green – with each dot getting slightly smaller so tht they didn’t obscure each other. Then I used my smallest dotting tool to create the starburst pattern.

Unfortunately, I have been a bit heavy-handed with my top coat and smudged the design a little. I wanted to wear this long-term, but I could only manage two good starbursts, so it only lasted for a day – with all my other nails in plain mint green.

For this manicure I’ve used:

Colours: SpaRitual Delight and Barry M Watermelon

Top coat: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri

All manicure images are copyright to Kerruticles unless otherwise mentioned.

Then with my thinnest dotting tool – the one that is almost needle sharp – I dragged through the polish in a loopy pattern. I thought at first about recreating the pattern I did on this fuchsia and cream needle drag. But instead I thought it might kind of look more like a laced up corset – very vampy – if the turns at each side were looped rather than pointed. So I did continuous wide S-shaped swirls from side to side with the dotting tool.

I probably had too much polish on the nail because it didn’t stay the lovely elegant pattern I had created. Instead it ran a bit and distorted in places. So by the time it had dried enough for top coat, I no longer had a lovely corset. But it does still have a vampy vibe, albeit in abstract form!

Please take a look at all the other vampy manicures from the Twinsies this week:

The Polish Party theme for October is Halloween. I’ve never done a “traditional” pumpkin, ghosts, haunted house, bats, Jack Skellington, mummies kind of manicure. And it seems that this year is no different.

I was inspired by a beautiful needle drag manicure by one of my favourite nail artists, Nail Bamboo, and used the Halloween colours orange and black to recreate it. Google Translate gave just enough help for me to work out exactly how she achieved her look.

After painting one thick coat of the orange base, OPI A Roll In The Hague, I quickly added a couple of largish dots of black, MUA Shade 2, at the tip end using the brush from the bottle. I also added a dot of orange in about the centre of the nail. Then, using my finest dotting tool, I promptly swirled the colours around a bit until I was satisfied with the look.

The themes this week in the 52 Week Pick n Mix Challenge are ’60s and matte/texture. I’ve gone with the ’60s. I have been trying to combine two prompts if possible, but I couldn’t bear to mattify these 60s psychedelic swirls, so left them glossy.

These are done using the dry marble / needle drag technique, as inspired by a fairly recent manicure by @sevta_sanders on Instagram (although I’ve done this differently to hers). I painted a thickish coat of base coat first, then immediately lightly placed a wide stripe of the other colour down the middle of my nail. Then with my smallest dotting tool – the one that’s practically a point – I pulled through the polish, circling from the outside inwards to the centre. I had to work quickly to get this look, and I re-did the blue and orange one about five times before I was happy! Also, because I could only do one base coat, I chose Barry M polishes, which are pretty opaque, especially the Gellys.

I am actually a child of the sixties, but I wasn’t really old enough during the decade to know if this look is right or not. Are they fab, cool, far out, hip and groovy enough do you think?

60s psychedelic swirls skittle using Barry M polishes

For this manicure I’ve used:

Index: Barry M Bright Purple and Barry M Lemon Ice Cream

Middle: Barry M Pink Punch and Barry M Cyan Blue

Ring: Barry M Blood Orange and Barry M Key Lime

Little: Barry M Damson and Barry M Mango

Top coat: Glisten & Glow HK Girl

All manicure images are copyright to Kerruticles unless otherwise mentioned.

And I’ve also never tried a needle drag – also known as a dry marble – so that’s the technique I went for.

It wasn’t too hard to achieve, but I’m not overly impressed with it. I far prefer the outcomes you get with water marbling.

I used a base of Maybelline Berry Fusion, which is a gorgeous, dark fuchsia colour with a metallic finish thanks to its bright pink shimmer. While the second coat of that was still wet, and working one nail at a time, I added a line of Sally Hansen Mousseline vertically down the centre of my nail. Immediately, the colours started to merge into one another a little, which I think gave it a nice marbled effect before I’d even started. Then I took my smallest dotting tool and quickly dragged through the manicure in a zig-zag, starting at the cuticles and coming down to the tips.

Day 25: a new technique for you – a needle drag using Maybelline Berry Fusion and Sally Hansen Mousseline

I top coated the middle nail a little too soon. It looked fabulous before that, but I’ve dragged the pattern down the nail a bit.

I think this is the longest my nails have ever been. I’m surprised they haven’t broken off yet (bet I’ve just jinxed myself by saying that!)

I’m off to spend hours on browse Pinterest now for some inspiration for the next challenge.

About me

I'm Claire Kerr and I'm a UK nails blogger. I've only been addicted to nail polish since 2012. Some kind of mid-life crisis turned me from a tomboy into a girly girl!

I had been posting pics of my manicures to Facebook, really as a way of documenting them for myself, but I was filling up my timeline with the photos and most of my friends weren't interested. So I started this blog instead!